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Obligatory image reminder that this post will at some point mention Thanksgiving. Also I drew this today at work. Be jealous.

They say that you know you’re gaining weight when black guys start hitting on you.

I’m not sure if anyone says this.

But I know I am gaining weight because aside from black guys hitting on me and the self-abusive conversation I have with myself each morning about the progression of my third trimester (I’m not pregnant), I recently got a speeding ticket. I know that is not a measurable factor here, but I have never been ticketed in the past. This is typically what happens when I get pulled over:

I lean out the window and ask, frantic and alarmed:

“IS EVERYTHING OKAY?!?!?!”

As if I am being pulled over to counsel him on marital troubles or American Idol voting techniques. He replies something about a child chasing a ball, and no crossing guard around, and federal imprisonment. I sigh, relieved, and hand him my license, unable to find my insurance or car registration.

After about 12 minutes of probing questions, among other things 😉 I am asked to avoid schools zones and any properties containing live, white children, and detour through the ghetto anytime I want to drive recklessly.

Pretty solid.

But unfortunately that only works when your body is not protruding past the restraint of your seat belt and your eyes aren’t being forced back into their sockets by pounds of cheek and eyebrow fat. Therefore I maintain that the only explanation for my receiving a ticket is the blubber effect. Definitely not the driving 53 in a 25. No. That can’t be it.

I’m blaming my weight gain on a number of factors, most of which I will not have the time or patience to tell you about. Here are three I can stomach. Hehehe. I’m so clever.

1. My ever increasing American guilt. Perhaps it is my preference to radical liberal politics over false patriotic conservative politics that results in the inordinate amount of time I spend each day mourning Middle Eastern people I will never meet. Not just because they’re dead. But mostly because they’re dead. This leaves me depressed and anxious and forced to resort to binging on food no Middle Eastern person would ever eat. Not just because they’re dead. But, really, mostly because they’re dead.

2. Sushi. When eaten by Japanese people or bulimic teenagers, sushi can be very healthy. But when eaten by an American woman at a Chinese buffet 10 minutes away from her house, once a weekend, sometimes twice, depending on how much she hates herself that day, it is not good. It is embarrassing. Not quite a “legitimate rape” comment, but definitely a “binders full of women.”

Too excellent to not be shared

3. Co-workers birthdays and other work-related food-oriented events. Every day in my office someone is either turning 50, hitting menopause, or inviting a politician to tour the school, all of which are equally disgraceful and handled with mass quantities of food. Even when I am trying to eat healthy I am bombarded with oatmeal cookies, or cheddar cheese slices, or Halloween candy hoarded away in my desk drawer. There is no escape!

I realize this doesn’t sound like a Thanksgiving Day post yet, but allow me to explain. My obsession with my weight sounds a little insecure. But I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m grateful that I am insecure and in a constant state of emotional anguish. Why? It keeps me from being a dick.

If you know anything about me, you know that the leading cause in my life is asshole prevention. If I lost weight and became confident and hot, I’d become even more self-involved and arrogant than I already am, and before you know it I’d be someone really evil like Kourtney Kardashian.

So to sum this whole thing up, this Thanksgiving I am grateful for many things.I am grateful for insecurities that keep me grounded. I am grateful for police officers that don’t tase me. I am grateful for the black guys who hit on me. I am grateful for my sister who is a registered dietician who will help me lose weight again. I am grateful for my boyfriend who I never talk about but exists quite fully in my life. I am grateful for the new wiper blades on my car. But lastly I am grateful for this, taken from the Facebook page of a person I actually know:

Doesn’t get much better than that.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I hope you are all grateful for something (me).

So, about a year ago I started “dieting.” I put this in quotes because admitting to dieting is like admitting to pleasuring yourself to a Zac Efron movie. Not really. But it is embarrassing for some reason. Anyone who has ever been overweight and made the decision to knock off a few pounds, can likely relate to the slight humiliation you experience when you tell someone who is thin, that the reason you cannot eat a piece of the cake they made for the office party is because you are dieting. (Please note: 92% of the time, this cake is contrived from a 200 year old recipe carried on by their recently deceased Jewish grandmother, who nearly lost it in a German concentration camp, but managed to retain it and bring it to America. It is to be made only for very special occasions and at maximum once per every five years.)

Said thin person’s eyes quickly scan your physique from head to toe, lingering on the marsupial belly hanging from the front of your body. Smiling slightly, they release a noise that sounds something like:

“Ahhhhhhhhhooooooooohhh.”

Awkward and unsure of what to say, you nod and smile. They break into a “smile/laugh” or a smaugh. I know you’re familiar. It’s the kind of facial expression that starts as a smile and turns into a laugh, with lots of bleached teeth showing.

“Well isn’t that…wonderful,” they continue. “Good for you, getting control of things.”

While on the surface this may sound polite, even encouraging to the untrained ear, I can see this type of comment for what it truly is. Passive aggressive bitch talk, also known as PABT. It implies that at one time you were “out of control” and your current appearance is a result of that. You can also deduce by their faux politeness, or fauxliteness, that what they are actually thinking is “I can’t believe you are just starting this now. If you really wanted to lose weight you would have stopped adding ½ cup of mozzarella cheese to your Lean Cuisine meals at lunch.”

As always, I have digressed.

Anyway, at the end of last June I began a diet. Things were ridiculous, even dare I say, out of control. During my last relationship and the utterly shitty marriage that followed, I gained a whopping 63 pounds. Oh yeah. You read that right. Sixty-three mother f***ing pounds. The madness had to stop.
So I began this diet and by late September lost a total of 50 pounds. Yay. But during this time I was doing outside sales for a chocolate company. You can see where this is going. As time passed I found that this diet was getting in the way of my over indulging in free chocolate and eating teaspoons of melted butter and sugar. So I quit that oppressive regimen and went “off the diet.”

The holidays came and passed. The New Year started and I was determined to start dieting again. My body however rejected this concept and maintained a lovely state of immobility from January to May. I’m not sure how I passed the time, but I do know I spent a lot of it eating Chinese takeout and watching The O.C. on my laptop. Amazingly, I only regained 5 pounds all year.

In early June I contracted a terrible stomach virus that helped me to lose a few pounds, getting the ball rolling toward my nonexistent “beach bod.” I took this opportunity to restart my diet.

Two days ago I weighed myself to reveal a total weight loss of 61 pounds, or 2/3 of Kate Moss. I am quite the happy Panda, which is coincidentally the baby animal I lost in weight.

So kudos to mah-self I guess. Two more pounds and it will be like I never got married at all. Holla.

Love,

The girl who is momentarily ignoring the fact that 2 pounds from now she will still be fat.